Though this edition is 1875, the contents make it clear that the original could not have been later than 1828, some of the events being perhaps as early as 1822, all reign of George IV. These are tales of the Charleys, the watchmen of Westminister, before the Metropolitan Police were founded in 1829. It is common to see any reference to the Charleys as them all being old, useless, sleeping, and probably in on a take, but this shows any number of them as perfectly willing to come running and pile on any malefactor if only numbers will do, and to do their best to arrest who needs it single-handed if need be.

Simply, the author took from columns on cases brought before the Bow Street magistrate the most interesting ones and did them up with the names changed to not permanently shame the parties involved.

The chuckles are thin for moderns, who do not find being Irish inherently funny, but it remains a record of what sessions in that famous courtroom might be like, with cases from Seven Dials lodgers and Covent Garden Theater bravos. No murder or outrage, but a good many assaults under highly varying testimony, and a few sad cases: the near-murder of a German by the housekeeper who has taken him prisoner, the pathos of an ex-soldier whose teen-aged sons have been inveigled into theft. The window this opens on non fashionable life is amazing: the daily hassles of inn keepers, beef houses where ordinary men went for a meal, a Jewish orange-seller, a nice girl talked into being a kept mistress who still hopes her lover will marry her, a lodger who falls in love with his landlady or a pensioner with a work-house woman, and many more.